Don't mess with 'the little guy'

Blood was rushing into his eye. John Dodson thought the fight was over. Then his opponent grabbed his ankle, and the referee said he wasn't done yet.

"I had a cut on my eye because I got headbutted," he said. "It was the worst day of my life. I wanted to debut as a standup fighter, and I came out swinging and got headbutted and just thought, 'Damn.' It was in the first 30 seconds."

So Dodson, as he described it, "just picked the dude up and slammed him."

He thought he was done, but the bout wasn't finished. After the ref instructed him to continue, Dodson - in the first mixed martial arts fight of his career - unleashed a flash of things to come.

"It only lasted 10 more seconds," he said. "I was wiping off the blood, and I had to get back to him. So I got him in a rear naked, and he tapped out right away."

A rear naked, as Dodson described it, is "like a headlock from behind - like the police would do."

One of UNM's most intense student athletes isn't here on scholarship. A sophomore, he doesn't compete wearing cherry and silver and is only a Lobo in the sense that he roots for his school.

But the 5-foot-2-inch Dodson is quickly making a name for himself in the world of mixed martial arts.

Last week he was ranked No. 1 in the 125-pound flyweight class of the "King of the Cage" worldwide fighting circuit. He has gone 2-1 through his first three fights - two wins by tap-out and one narrow loss by decision to the previous No. 1.

Doing it for Dad

His foray into cage fighting started with a chance encounter at Chuck E. Cheese's, just after he capped a successful run through four years of high-school wrestling.

The seeds of his passion, though, may have been planted much earlier in the 20-year-old's life.

"When I was little, I got into a lot of fights," he said. "It's a natural thing. My father dragged me into it and wanted me to fight everyone that I could. He would pick out some random kid, and when you have a father's love, you just think, 'Yeah, I'm gonna do it for my dad.'"

Dodson said his father, who he described as an alcoholic, would also take on his son himself or bring people home for him to fight.

"It happened like once every two months or something," Dodson said. "It was just little-kid fighting, rolling around and throwing punches and stuff."

Dodson enjoyed basketball growing up. He attended Moriarty High School, and because of its lousy hoops team, he decided to pick another sport to compete in.

He chose wrestling, and in four years he brought home two state championships, one runner-up in the state championships and four district titles.

The unusual job interview

A month after graduating high school, Dodson was working a birthday party at his job at Chuck E. Cheese's when he was approached by the birthday boy's father, a man named Chris Luttrell.

"I didn't really get into (cage fighting)," Dodson said. "It actually kind of found me."

Luttrell walked up to Dodson and immediately knew how well he'd wrestled in his Moriarty years.

"He was like, 'Hey, you're John Dodson," Dodson said. "Then he just started rattling off all my stats."

With no more wrestling on the horizon, he accepted an invitation to join Luttrell and head trainer Greg Jackson on the cage-fighting team. The audition was on a Saturday, in front of a group of police officers and pro fighters.

"I just went out there and did an audition for it," he said. "I wrestled around and rolled around and showed them what I can do."

Dodson was a hit with his new coach.

"He came down and took to it like a fish to water," Jackson said. "He's got all the attributes that make a great champion. He's got the right attitude and great work ethic and an extreme amount of talent."

"The Clown"

For a man who can break your arm in seconds, Dodson is surprisingly soft-spoken in person.

When he competes, though, he has a sort of subdued flamboyance. He flexes and roars as he's introduced to the crowd, then celebrates his wins with a backflip.

"I'm more of a showman," Dodson said. "I go out there to entertain people. I'm working on this backflip move so I can knock somebody out with it."

His coach and fellow fighters are a bit looser with their description of Dodson's style and personality.

"He is a clown," Jackson said. "He's always doing backflips and cracking jokes. He gives play-by-play of how fights will go or how they went. We wanted to just start calling him 'The Clown.'"

That showman style may be driving fights away from Dodson.

"Since I do some wild and outrageous shit, people get afraid of being embarrassed in front of their friends and stuff," he said. "It's not my fault they're afraid. I'm just going out there to win."

Drunks always want to fight the little guy

Dodson may walk around campus knowing he could whoop on every guy he passes, but he doesn't act like it. He carries himself like any humble athlete would.

You won't find him flashing his boxing or grappling skills over a girl or the last keg cup at a party.

"I just avoid fights, because here in New Mexico, people are crazy," he said. "I could get stabbed or shot or something."

But a slight smile flashed over his face when considering further.

"I do kinda want to, because everybody tells me it's fun to get in a fight with just a regular guy," he said.

He doesn't work as a bouncer Downtown like a lot of his teammates. Dodson is still employed by Chuck E. Cheese's, doing, he said, "everything but the mouse. I'm too short."

So why not put his skills to work on rowdy late night bar patrons?

"Everybody who's a cage fighter is a bouncer, but I'm too small," he said. "The drunk guys will want to just always fight the little guy, and that means I'll be fighting every night and beating the crap out of people."

There's also an issue of unwanted damage to a fighter's most important tools.

"A couple of our guys have messed up hands right now because they're always beating up somebody who did something stupid," he said. "I don't want to deal with that right now."

It might be surprising to meet Dodson and some of his fellow fighters. These guys are actually ... nice.

"Everybody here is a sweetheart," Jackson said of his fellow fighters. "No jerks. If you're a shithead, you don't last very long. Everybody thinks they can fight in New Mexico. They think they can fight, but when they realize all the technique and how much work it actually takes, they either mellow out or they just quit."

Dodson was never a guy who needed to mellow, and he is far from quitting.

"I want to do this for as long as I can," he said. "I can see myself doing it for 20 years. It all depends on what happens. My goal is to take every belt in every type of organization so no one can say I didn't fight the best."

Just three fights into his career he's earned a No. 1 ranking. Who knows where he backflips from here?